by Milan Djordjevic
for Anne-Lise Gautier
The poet Bashō teaches that the famous
feats
of blood-soaked military leaders come
to nothing
while the leap of a frog may last for
centuries.
Black clouds and rain arrive from the
Atlantic.
The sun was out, but now over
Saint-Nazaire
The grains of ice fall out of the sky
like black rice.
Poets are creatures often lacking in
substance,
men who say stupid and untrue things,
madmen and blabbermouths who imagine
what they will.
And yet, and yet, they whisper about
miracles,
rant about what others don’t even
suspect,
so their words glow in the dark like
phosphorus.
The Japanese poet Bashō teaches me
that what is close may be terrifyingly
distant and that a journey
to a far off place brings one closer to
oneself.
Over the Atlantic, the sky has
darkened,
hail fell just a moment ago, and now
the city glistens
in the sunshine and under the clear
sky.
From Oranges and Snow: Selected Poems of Milan
Djordjevic, translated (from Serbian) and introduced by Charles Simic.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2010, page 17.